[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Capping off the summer box office with explosive action, The Expendables 2 offers the sendoff adrenaline junkies are seeking before the more sedate pace of fall releases. [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] As he proved with the original installment, Sylvester Stallone grasps the action-oriented DNA of the films’ badass cast of reprobate mercenaries with an intuition derived from dozens of genre roles.

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Without any similar competition among this week’s openers, the Lionsgate sequel should fare extremely well against remaining holdovers, though exceeding the 2010 original's surprising ’$274 million in worldwide box office might be a stretch. [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ]

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Without wasting any time on setup, the sequel finds Barney Ross (Stallone) and his team of hard-bitten mercenaries on a clandestine mission to extract a kidnapped Chinese billionaire in Nepal, where they discover that someone has gotten there before them [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] -- Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger), another operative for their contractor, Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). Freeing Trench and the billionaire from their captors, the team returns to the States, where Church confronts Barney with an unpleasant reminder: The Expendables’ leader owes Church $5 million in confiscated cash from a previous job. But he is prepared to make a deal if Barney takes on a new assignment.

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] The catch is that he will need to place Church’s operative on his team, Chinese tech expert Maggie (Yu Nan). Since the Expendables are an all-male crew, the addition of a woman almost immediately throws group dynamics out of kilter. [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Their assignment is to retrieve an undisclosed item from a high-tech electronic safe aboard a downed plane that has crashed in Albania. Although new team member and Afghanistan vet Billy (Liam Hemsworth), an expert sniper, reluctantly tells Barney that this is his last outing, the rest of the Expendables relish another mission, including second-in-command Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) and team members Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews).

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] As soon as Maggie has decoded the safe aboard the crashed plane and extracted the contents, the Expendables are ambushed by an Eastern European crime cartel led by the sadistic Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), who forces Barney to turn over the device from the safe and then kills a key team member. [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Maggie later reveals that the item stolen by Vilain is a miniature computer containing the location of a five-ton cache of plutonium that the Russians stashed in an abandoned mine during the Cold War.

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Motivated as much by revenge as their realigned mission to prevent Vilain from selling the weapons-grade nuclear material to a list of willing buyers, the Expendables take off in pursuit of their adversaries, with Barney’s directive uppermost in their minds: “Track them, find them, kill them.” [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ]

[ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] While most of the original film’s action transpired in Latin America, Expendables 2 relocates to Bulgaria, which offers appropriately expansive vistas and credible locations for the Eastern European settings. [ Watch The Expendables 2 Online ] Taking over directing duties from Stallone, Simon West preserves the hardboiled action and wisecracking cast dynamics of the original, channeling some of the B-movie tonal elements he might have picked up directing Con Air. Managing the complexity of stunts, aircraft and vehicle pileups and frequent shootouts that comprise the majority of the running time is a major challenge that West executes with elan, even adding unexpected grace notes to some otherwise routine scenes. Abetted by cinematographer and action-adventure specialist Shelly Johnson, whose camera placement and movement are spot-on, the action choreography never disappoints. Numerous gunfights, combat set pieces and fight scenes are muscularly staged and skillfully supported by Todd E. Miller’s editing, though the sheer sound volume grows repetitive and wearying.